Capital Land Research Articles

Technical efficiency analysis in Italian sheep and goat farms using FADN dataset

The sheep and goat farms are one of the main breeding in many Italian regions located in mountainous and disadvantaged rural areas. One of the main Italian Protected Designation Origin cheese as Pecorino Romano is made by sheep milk from many regions. The main purpose of this research was to asses by a quantitative approach the technical efficiency in sheep and goat farms part of the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) in all Italian regions since 2008 to 2020. By the Multi-direction Efficiency Analysis (MEA) it has been possible to overcome one of the main bottlenecks of the technical efficiency estimation analysing which is the excess in each input able to impact to the technical efficiency. Main results have pointed out that the Italian sheep and goat farms have a higher technical efficiency compared to other studies carried out in other European countries. Land capital, labour and assets have been the main inputs able to impact to the technical efficiency. Furthermore, an important role of subsidies to the sheep and goat Italian farms exists.

Agricultural subsidies and land rental prices: New evidence from meta-analysis

The capitalization of agricultural subsidies is highly relevant to sustainable agricultural development. This study applies meta-analysis to systematically investigate the overall mean effects of capitalization of agriculture subsidies in China, the EU, and the USA. We explore capitalization rates across different types and recipients, including potential sources of heterogeneity. Our primary objective is to address the debate of whether agricultural subsidies are ultimately capitalized into land rental prices. Results show that the overall mean effect of subsidies on land capitalization in the European Union (5.5%) is greater than that in the United States (2.9%), with no significant and positive effects observed in Chinese markets. Additionally, we conclude that decoupled payments may not reduce the capitalization of agricultural subsidies in the European Union and the USA. Notably, agricultural subsidies received by landowners/contractors tend to be lower than those received by tenants. Finally, the capitalization of agricultural subsidies is influenced by several potential sources of heterogeneity, including farmland scales, aggregated data, sample sizes, lagged subsidies, and the starting and ending dates of publications. These findings provide comprehensive insights into the capitalization of agricultural subsidies and offer practical policy recommendations for the effective mitigation of capitalization rates.

ТЕОРЕТИЧНІ ОСНОВИ УПРАВЛІННЯ ЗЕМЕЛЬНИМ КАПІТАЛОМ ФЕРМЕРСЬКИХ ГОСПОДАРСТВ

The efficiency of farmers' management significantly depends on the effective management of land capital. It has been established that the management of land capital of farms is a system that covers all social relations and generally determines the set of relationships between the elements of the management system aimed at the rational and environmentally responsible land use. The subsystems of land capital management of farms are economic, environmental, regulatory, administrative, innovation and management, and land management and technological. The structural model of the system of land capital management of farms includes the subject, object, subject matter, purpose, goals, principles, functions, methods and mechanisms of management. The subject of this system, i.e., the management subsystem, are farms and government authorities of all levels that implement the state land, agrarian and tax policies and supervise compliance with the norms of rational land use. The object of management is differentiated by the depth of the essential content of the definition of “land”, covering land and its fertility, land resources and their capitalization, land and its investment attractiveness, agricultural land (by type) and the efficiency of its usage. The economic interests of landowners, land users, the state, and society are the basis for making managerial decisions by a farmer. It has been shown that the system of land capital management of farms should be based on the following basic principles: systematicity; purposefulness; balance of interests of a farmer, landowners, the state and society in the use of land resources; payment for land use; sustainable development of agricultural land use; rationality and economic feasibility of land use; priority of land protection as the main means of production; responsibility and information. The functions of land capital management of farms include planning of land capital use; forecasting of land capital use in the short, medium and long term; organization of land capital use; motivation and control of rational use of land capital.

A Review of Rural Land Capitalization: Current Status and Further Research

Land stands as a crucial factor in the production process. The rational allocation of land resources and the enhancement of land use efficiency play pivotal roles in maintaining stable economic development. Various land use types facilitate the capitalization of land resources through activities such as land transfer, land investment, and large-scale land management. Presently, certain regions grapple with challenges characterized by abundant land resources, insufficient utilization of land elements, and a low degree of utilized land capitalization. To address these issues, scholars employ diverse research methods, delving into land capitalization from various perspectives. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the current academic research on land capitalization. It elucidates the conceptual nuances inherent in the process of land capitalization, traces the historical evolution of land capitalization, and establishes a research framework that considers land appreciation, ownership relationships, and functional transformations. By synthesizing and analyzing the existing research on land capitalization, this paper outlines the current status and identifies future research directions. It is concluded that land appropriation, ownership relationships and functional transformations are the three most important elements in the process of land capitalization. The paper proposes objectives for achieving high-quality development while avoiding excessive capitalization and the aim is to propel land capitalization as a catalyst for rural economic development.

Formation of land capital in economic science: lessons for Ukraine

Formation of land capital in economic science: lessons for Ukraine

Unraveling the role of informal mutual aid networks in maintaining urban farms in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo

IntroductionThe multiple constraints of urban agriculture have prompted farmers in Lubumbashi to turn to informal mutual aid networks. The survey data collected from 88 farmers chosen at random from the 202 farmers previously interviewed enabled us to decipher the crucial role of mutual aid in maintaining urban farms.MethodsThe survey data collected from 88 farmers chosen at random from the 202 farmers previously interviewed enabled us to decipher the crucial role of mutual aid in maintaining urban farms.ResultsThe results show that 79.5% of the surveyed farmers resort to mutual aid to ensure the vegetable production cycle. More specifically, this mutual aid consists in sharing resources, for which the farmer would interact 15.1 times with other farmers, and in sharing agricultural know-how, for which the farmer would interact 11.6 times with other farmers. Four categories of resources are defined in this mutual aid network: highly exchanged resources with a high exchange intensity (hoes, watering cans, plant protection products and chicken droppings), highly exchanged resources with a low exchange intensity (land capital, spades, and seeds), lowly exchanged resources with a low exchange intensity (motor pumps and buckets) and non-exchanged resources (financing, labor, chemical fertilizers). Agricultural know-how such as soil preparation, soil fertility management, pest control and sales techniques are widely shared. Characteristics such as gender, age, experience, religious affiliation, and farmer status in the household are statistically significant explanatory factors of mutual aid. In addition, neighborhood relations, kinship and religious affiliation are social ties that enable farmers to help each other.DiscussionThe results provide useful information on the crucial role played by informal mutual aid networks in maintaining urban farms in the face of the negative consequences of chaotic urbanisation and climate change. The study recommends that policymakers and agricultural extension services take these networks into account when drawing up policies for disseminating innovations. For, although informal, they constitute powerful and inexpensive channels of communication in an inoperative institutional context of urban agriculture.

De‐peripheralization and rural land capitalization: An empirical study of a public–private partnership in Zhaoqing, China

AbstractClassical urban geography theories determine the distribution of population, production and economic activities on geospatial features. Under this assumption, peripheral regions are rarely prosperous. Depopulation, weak industrial and employment structure and inefficient and fragmented land use form a negative feedback loop. Within the context of economic revitalization of peripheral area, this paper introduces an innovative Chinese practice on de‐peripheralization on the basis of two months of empirical research on the ‘two‐stage land demutualization reform’ in Zhaoqing, a city located at the peripheries of the Pearl River Delta (PRD). The reform successfully bonds the local stakeholders, stimulates the economy and resolves the land value capturing issue in urbanization. Local farmers in Zhaoqing founded an investment company with agricultural fields demutualized into stock shares and collaborated with the local government in improving local infrastructures and promoting economic investment in the secondary/tertiary sector. An in‐depth profile of the public–private partnership mechanism is collected through semi‐structured interviews conducted with locals. The results of the policy evaluation show that the rural land capitalization and inclusive design of the partnership regime removed the institutional barriers to socio‐economic development and brought attraction to the underprivileged area. The proposed joint development and value sharing policy framework contribute to the literature of institutional renovation for economic de‐peripheralization, especially for practices in land readjustment and zoning, resident resettlement, local employment provision and value capturing.

Smallholder farmers practices of crops livestock integration in the district of Aguié (Niger): Agricultural production and livestock feed

Crop production and livestock are main economic activities of most populations in Maradi region. The objective of this work is to study agricultural production and livestock feeding in terms of farming practices of crops livestock integration in 4 villages of Aguié. The results of surveys randomly conducted on a sample of 78 farmers showed that farmers were categorized into two groups, which are farmers (67%) and agro-pastoralists (33%). However, the multivariate analysis of data highlighted existence of three categories of agro-pastoralist farmers, distinct in terms of their means of existence and levels of integration. It was counted 21% of population who have plows and seeders, while 51% have carts. According to distribution of oxen in farms, a proportion of 51% were small farms have no draft oxen, while 45% of farms have a draft oxen, 3 % of farms have a pair of oxen and 1 % of farms has five (5) draft oxen. Cereal production in Kg is 862 ± 419 for Small Farms (SF); 1008 ± 132.7 for Medium Farms (MF) and 5748 ± 4068 for Big Farms (BF). As for production (Kg) of legumes; SF produce on average 293 ±139.3, MF 452 ± 123.7 and the BF 991 ± 208.5. With regard to sales and self-consumption of cereals and legumes, BF carry out these practices in large quantities. In MF, for a millet production of 4,155.99 ± 613.49 kg, the millet stovers are 2,068.85 ± 305.39 kg. Cowpea production in BF is 359.08 ±135.25 kg for 65.64 ± 24.72 kg of cowpea haulms. The sorghum stovers for BF, MF and SF is respectively 566.2; 276.8 and 125.2 kg with land capital in Ha of 8.1 (BF), 3 (MF) and 1.8 (SF). Despite fodder available which is 2,227.5 kg for 0.58 TLU in the SF; 2,441.1 kg for 1.63 TLU at the MF level and 4,414.5 kg for 3.03 TLU, fodder balance is in deficit in all farms according to fodder requirement (Kg/270 days).

Resources or Capital?—The Quality Improvement Mechanism of Precision Poverty Alleviation by Land Elements

With China facing the challenges of fragmentation, multidimensionality, and the dynamics of relative poverty under the present situation, more attention is being paid to the role of land in poverty alleviation. In order to improve the quality of precision in poverty alleviation, it is urgent to clarify the micromechanisms of precision poverty alleviation methods that utilize land elements. On the basis of panel data from 29 provinces from 2010 to 2016, this research uses a panel vector autoregressive model to empirically analyze the mechanisms of interaction among land resource endowment, land capital endowment, and rural poverty. The research results show that the improvement of land resource endowment has had a relatively prominent effect on short-term poverty reduction, while the improvement of land capital endowment has had a relatively longer-term effect on the improvement of rural poverty. Land capital endowment and rural poverty can constitute a positive, cumulative circular effect, which can play a sustainable role in improving poverty. The increase in land resource endowment has a positive effect on land capital endowment, but excessive increases in land capital endowment were found to have a negative effect on land resource endowment. Therefore, the implementation of land element resource-based and capital-based poverty alleviation policies can distinguish between shorter-term and relatively longer-term goals, enabling a more accurate improvement of the quality of poverty alleviation. At the same time, this approach is more sustainable, since it makes full use of the circular effect constituted by land capital endowment and rural poverty. However, attention should be paid to preventing damages to land resource endowment, which can be caused by the excessive capitalization of land.

How the Marketization of Land Transfer Affects High-Quality Economic Development: Empirical Evidence from 284 Prefecture-Level Cities in China

The allocation of urban land from planned to market-oriented is an important part of China’s economic market-oriented reform, but its impact on high-quality economic development still lacks direct testing. Based on the data of prefecture-level city panels from 1999 to 2019, this paper analyzes the impact mechanism and effect of land transfer marketization on the high-quality development of urban economy by constructing multiple land transfer marketization indicators. The study found that the marketization of land transfer has a significant role in promoting high-quality economic development in the long run. The specific mechanism is that the marketization of land transfer affects the high-quality development of the economy through the financing effect and the resource allocation effect. The degree of marketization of land transfer can be increased, which can not only promote the expansion of production scale by increasing the degree of land capitalization and increasing the scale of urban financing, but also improve the efficiency of resource allocation by giving more effective play to the land price signal and guiding the combination of production factors to match more effectively. However, this paper also finds that the effect of land financing has a very complex impact on resource allocation, and the impact of financing in the primary and secondary land markets on the efficiency of resource allocation is generally completely different. The research results of this paper have rich policy implications and have practical reference value for evaluating and improving the current urban land transfer system. In the future, we should continue to improve the land transfer system in the direction of marketization, reduce the improper administrative interference of local governments in land transfer, improve the level of marketization of the primary land market, and further develop the secondary land market.

Optimal Management of Irrigation Water from Aquifer and Surface sources

AbstractWe explore the economic merits of on-farm water storage with tailwater recovery systems to reduce aquifer depletion in a region with expanding irrigated acreage and substantial off-season precipitation. Gains are substantial on a broad scale and long planning horizon, including more than $4 billion in producer surplus, 5 million acre-feet of conserved groundwater, and land capitalization of $24 per acre. Sensitivity analyses provide insights with respect to the impact of discount rates, rainfed returns, return flows, and aquifer recharge rates. Results can inform stakeholders about the optimal allocation of funds directed at agricultural practice adoption and agricultural water investments.

Luta agrária, jurídica e militar no norte do Rio Grande do Sul, sul do Brasil: Ações do Movimento Sem Terra (MST) na Fazenda Coqueiros, 2004-2008

The social struggle of the Landless Movement (Movimento dos Sem-terra, MST) for agrarian reform at Fazenda Coqueiros (2004-08) has become paradigmatic in southern Brazil. Based on information from local and state newspapers, police inquiries, military documents and legal files, the author concludes that the social struggle was highly judicialized and intensely criminalized in the state political sphere, to prevent Fazenda Coqueiros from being expropriated. This social struggle revealed the political organization of representatives of big land capital in Brazil, and how governors interfered to prevent the expropriation of a latifundium for social purposes, as this could have set a powerful precedent in the country. The police and regional legal operators engaged in actions of intense repression and applied exceptional legal measures.

Land capital and emissions convergence in an extended Green Solow model

AbstractThe main purpose of this paper is to analyze the contribution of land capital to the growth of emissions and income per capita in the long run. We collect new satellite data from the Earth Observatory to obtain estimates of the Enhanced Vegetation Index at the country level for the period 2000–2015. We use these data and the World Bank wealth estimates of natural capital to calibrate and empirically test an extension of the Green Solow model with land degradation and land capital investment. We show that the model is consistent with the cross-country variation in growth rates of carbon emissions per capita and find that there is convergence at the global level, with the contribution of land capital investment to the growth of emissions being negative and significant in all specifications.

Inequalities in Access to Land and Strategies of Resilience in the Burkinabe Migrants in Northern Côte d’Ivoire

This article analyzes the socio-cultural constraints in the host areas which are sources of the inequality of access to land in connection with the strategies for reducing said inequality. The article is based on research being carried out in the department of Korhogo, in the north of Côte d’Ivoire. These burdens are revealing socio-cultural barriers experienced by migrant Fulani ethnic group in their Burkinabe’s relationship with their Senufo tutors. It shows that despite an apparent social cohesion between Burkinabe Peulh herders and Senufo farmers, inequalities persist in access to land capital. This makes it possible to identify the poverty of living conditions and existence among Burkinabe migrants in certain rural localities in the north. Through a qualitative approach glazed maintenance s individual and focus group with community leaders and local populations, structured around a sample of 50 people, the study finds that the religious institution embodied by the Poro, capital of autochthony and the inheritance system in the Senufo culture, underpins the production of inequalities between Fulani herders and native farmers in access to land. Consequently, mentoring and the transfer of skills and knowledge are mobilized by migrants as strategies to reduce these inequalities and improve income.

Agricultural Development in the Fight against Poverty: The Case of South Kivu, DR Congo

Agriculture plays a prominent role in the economy of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and has considerable production potential. One of the most populous and poorest provinces in DRC is South Kivu, where many people live below the poverty line. This paper aimed to understand agricultural development’s role in reducing poverty and maintaining rural households’ food security in the DRC. This study developed a questionnaire to evaluate the household identity, source of income, access to land, crops grown on the land, farming and animal husbandry practices, and constraints faced by households in relation to agriculture. The survey included meetings with farm heads, data collection from 120 households on household characteristics of their livelihoods (human capital, land capital, social capital, financial, etc.), as well as an overview of living conditions and income from agricultural activities. The data were processed and analyzed using R 3.6.2 and Excel software. The results showed that access to land is problematic with relatively small farms, especially when one considers that household size is high and therefore, the “area per farm” ratio is low. Moreover, agriculture generates very little income and it is therefore very difficult for a farmer to emerge from poverty. As a result, implementing an effective and equitable anti-poverty policy in rural areas is important to address the issue of farming household incomes and target low incomes from all sources of income.

Soil sealing along the Beirut coast during half a century marked by population growth and refugee inflows

Land take by urbanization has increased significantly in the last decades, seriously contributing to the loss and degradation of the land capital. Urban sprawl and the related soil consumption are a major environmental and urban planning issue in the West Asian regions, particularly in the recent context marked by fast economic development and by regional conflicts that produced waves of war refugees and economic migrants. This study quantifies soil sealing due to the urban development between 1962 and 2020 in 28 municipalities located along the coastal strip and the coastal hill range of the Beirut and Mount Lebanon Governorates, in Lebanon, and discusses the impacts of urbanization processes on important ecosystem services such as food security and hydrological risks. The study is based on original data derived from historical topographic maps and from recent geospatial datasets. The two datasets have been generated and combined in a GIS environment by means of an original method that proved to be effective to perform detailed urban change analyses over long time spans covering periods in which no satellite information with sufficient resolution was available. An overall 54.0% increase in land surface taken by urbanization was observed in the study area between 1962 and 2020. This amount is not exceptional if compared to other fast-growing urban centers of the region. It is, however, very high considering the high overall degree of saturation (83.5%) of the available land space, the very dense continuous urban fabric, and the high level of soil sealing on the hill slopes overlooking the plain. These aspects raise concerns about the environmental sustainability of the urbanization process. A very sensitive situation is represented by the suburban areas located on the hill sides and still destined to agricultural crops, which preserve high value traditional rural landscapes. Urgent measures should be taken, framed within improved urban planning policies, to prevent further losses and to mitigate the impacts of the present-day soil sealing situation.

Research review of land capitalization in China

Research review of land capitalization in China

Estimation of the impact of CAP subsidies as environmental variables on Romanian farms

Romanian agriculture is characterised by the presence of small farm enterprises, with an average value of land capital of less than 5 hectares in more than 95% of cases. The aim of this research was to assess the level of technical efficiency in farming through a non-parametric approach such as the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), and also to estimate the impact that financial subsidies allocated under the first and second pillars of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have had on the technical efficiency. In the application of this analysis, these two inputs have been considered as environmental variables in order to evaluate their effect in fostering the technical efficiency using a two-stage dea method. The results have revealed the pivotal impact of financial subsidies disbursed through the first and second pillars of cap in enhancing technical efficiency in the Romanian farms included in the fadn dataset. In contrast, the subsidies disbursed under only the second pillar of the CAP in the framework of rural development have not been found to have had any discernible effect on the technical efficiency of Romanian farms. The novelty of this quantitative approach in the estimation of technical efficiency lies in its focus on the role of environmental variables as drivers in affecting the technical efficiency of farms, defining, in addition, how important they are in addressing efficiency and in shifting enhancing the function of technical efficiency on farms as well.Some conclusions were drawn: it is important to increase the endowment of subsidies for rural development and as well as decoupled payments in order to raise the level of technical efficiency in Romanian farms. At the same time, the findings suggest the need for Romanian farmers to reduce the level of certain inputs, such as labour, on the one hand, while on the other, increasing the dimension size of farms in terms of land capital and encouraging greater investment in labor-saving technology, even if significant imbalances remain between different Romanian regions, both in terms of the level of technical efficiency achieved and also in terms of output yield, and in the endowment of land capital and other assets.

Limits of Land Capitalization and Its Economic Effects: Evidence from China

Academic debates over the advantages and disadvantages of land capitalization are ongoing in China, but the fundamental issues behind the debate have not been adequately explored. We suggest that the core issue in land capitalization is the degree of capitalization. This study first theoretically deduced the existence of land capitalization limits; then, we used panel data from 35 key cities to conduct an empirical test, and finally we analyzed the current risk of excessive land capitalization in China. The results indicated that the mutual restriction of multiple land attributes determined the limits of land capitalization. Therefore, land capitalization has been categorized into two types—moderate and excessive—which produce different economic effects. The degree of land capitalization and real economic growth showed a significant inverted-U relationship, and the turning point appeared when the land capital value reached 2.5 times the land factor value. According to this threshold, we can infer that many key cities have been overcapitalized, which may lead to an economic recession and affect the growth prospects of China’s economy. Further analysis indicated that excessive land capitalization could be related to the unique Chinese style of decentralization. These conclusions have important policy implications for the reform of land marketization in countries undergoing economic transition. The goal of land reform is to allow the market mechanism to play a major role in land resource allocation, but the excessive capitalization of land must be prevented.

A Critique of Marketism: Varieties of Exchanges in China’s Past and Present

The theory and ideology of mainstream Anglo-American “marketism” do not accord with reality. Its core idea—equating all trade with equal and mutually beneficial market exchanges, and believing that such exchanges are certain to lead to division of labor and transformative changes in labor productivity—is a one-sided, idealized construction. It erases unequal exchanges under imperialism and ignores the realities of the use of cheap informal labor in developing countries by hegemonic capital in the globalized economy. It also disregards pervasive unethical pursuits of profit among producers and widespread human weaknesses among consumers. If we proceed instead from China’s actual experiences, we can come to see and grasp the many different varieties of trade that differ from the abstractions of conventional marketism, including the “commercialization of extraction” that long characterized the principally unidirectional “trade” based on severe inequities between town and country, as well as the “growth without (labor productivity) development,” or “involutionary commercialization,” that long characterized domestic Chinese commerce that emerged under severe population pressures on the land. If we turn instead to the “take-off” period of the recent decades in Chinese economic development, we can see also the great contrast between Chinese realities and the mainstream economics construct of a “laissez faire state,” and see instead the state engaging most actively in development, and state-owned enterprises working closely together with private enterprises. Those realities are perhaps most evident in the recent dramatic development of China’s mammoth real estate economy that has been the main engine of rapid development since about 2000—most especially in its immense process of the “capitalization of land.” We can also see how the tradition of the “socialist planned economy” has operated in unison with the new capitalist market economy, by combining the twin ideals and mechanisms of “people’s livelihood” and “private profit.” What is needed is a new kind of political economy that can grasp and illuminate such changes.